SALAMAUA AREA BECAME SHAMBLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 219, 15 September 1943, Page 3

SALAMAUA AREA BECAME SHAMBLES

TERRIFIC POUNDING

Allies Dropped Thousands Of Tons Of Bombs N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. SYDNEY, this day. The Australian troops who occupied Salamaua found the whole area a shambles as the result of the heavy bombing and shelling. The isthmus and the peninsula were pitted with huge graters from thousands of tons of bombs dropped there in the past month. Japanese gun crews were entombed in these craters, in foxholes and in uprooted pill boxes.

No official estimate has yet been made of the Japanese casualties in the battle for Salamaua, but the number of prisoners is believed to be very small. Survivors of the garrison retreating along the coast towards Lae are being given no chance to dig in so that they can fight delaying rearguard actions.

The Japanese probably hope to reach Schneider Point, a barge staging point along the route to Lae, but it is unlikely that they will be able to muster sufficient barges and air cover to make an escape. Bitter, Difficult Campaign Salamaua has been in Japanese hands since March 19, 1942. Its fall marks the end of one of the most bitter and most difficult campaigns in New Guinea. The campaign began at Wau last January, when the Seventeenth Brigade, one of the Australian Imperial Force's most famous fighting units, drove the Japanese back from the aerodrome.

General Sir Thomas Blarney said the capture of Salamaua was the climax to a very fine series of operations between an American regiment and Australian troops.

The Japanese in the Lae area show reluctance to engage in any large-scale operation. An Allied patrol in Heath's plantation, Markham Valley, killed eight Japanese and wounded eleven others in a brief clash. Conditions in the Markham Valley show a marked contrast to those in the drives against Buna and Gona six months ago.

Then fever-worn troops faced strongly entrenched enemy units with only the arms they carried. Now, airborne troops, operating over fiat countiw, are seeking out the enemy, confident that they have ample supplies and weapons.